Absolutely Elsewhere
by wallyflower
Summary: Over the course of a week, Hermione Granger is suspected of murder and Unspeakable Snape solves a small mystery. Written for the SSHG exchange.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: Absolutely Elsewhere**

**Gift****for:**savine_snape

**Prompt:** Unspeakable Snape must work with MLE employee Hermione Granger. What happens, who decides that they are the perfect pairing for the job, can they forget their shared past and forge a lasting partnership and/or relationship?

**Summary:** Over the course of a week, Severus Snape solves a small mystery.

**Prompt:** Unspeakable Snape must work with MLE employee Hermione Granger. What happens, who decides that they are the perfect pairing for the job, can they forget their shared past and forge a lasting partnership and/or relationship?

**Author****'****s****notes:** This was written for the 2011 SSHG exchange. This is my own interpretation of what the Department of Mysteries might be like, and any errors or inconsistencies with the canon are mine. (I haven't had the heart to pick up a Harry Potter book since reading DH for the first time, so all of my canon checks are courtesy of the Harry Potter wiki.) (Also, the use of Astoria Greengrass' name, though not her heritage, is intentional.)

To savine_snape, thank you for the prompt! I'm sorry that this ended up a little underdeveloped; I was simply so pressed for time that I couldn't make it into the _Franchise__Affair_ (a la Josephine Tey) style novella/romantic comedy I wanted it to be.

/ \ / \ / \

CHAPTER ONE

It began—as these things often do—with a Floo call.

Every Friday evening since he had settled into his home at the end of the war, Severus Snape had made himself a small dinner of beef stew and store-bought bread, and had sat in the small dining room and read a book until he finished his meal. He had never before thought of himself as a creature of habit, but on this Friday evening, when he found himself suddenly bored with his book and with his food and with his house, it dawned on him that he had fallen into the dullness of routine.

It had been a peaceful life. After being tried for crimes of wartime and after being fully exonerated, he had been too relieved to think of anything but where he would live and where he could work. Things had reached a nadir when he had finally allowed Slughorn to pull some strings to get him a job at the Time division of the Department of mysteries.

The job was not, as one might assume, very thrilling, or even terribly mysterious.

The only thing that mattered, he told himself, was that it was quiet, secluded and far away from those other jobs he couldn't even contemplate having—such as the resumption of his teaching position at Hogwarts, or tinkering about in the Death Chamber, or, even worse, in the Love Chamber.

He clocked in at nine each morning and left at five minutes past five, flooed home, and either watched the telly or read himself to sleep. Occasionally he dreamt—dreamt of a woman with hair the color of fire and bewitching eyes—but there were potions for those kinds of things nowadays.

It was not a bad life. In fact sometimes, looking at himself in the mirror where the scars stood out against the cords and pale skin of his neck, he wondered if he had really been that same person, that same spy in perpetual motion, who balanced so precariously between his two roles that his personality had been consumed by them. These years of peace had allowed him the liberty of rediscovering himself—the things he liked, the things he wanted to do. Things, in the end, that he was still discovering.

And when part of him wondered, as it wondered now, how much longer he would decide if this was all there would be of his life, he folded that thought aside and thought of other things.

This evening the distraction came in the form of his supervisor's voice booming from the sitting room. When Severus reached the room, both dreading and anticipating this interruption of his dinner, the flames in the hearth had sprung fully into life, dancing around Colin Morse's face, sickly-green in the firelight.

"Snape, come quick. I need to talk to you."

/ \ / \ / \

A reluctant trip through the Floo later, Severus found himself in a familiar office in the Department of Mysteries. He thought longingly of his home and looked forward to crawling in to bed, but tried not to let his impatience show as Morse, standing behind the desk and looking distractedly at the papers on it, drew out the silence a little longer.

Severus supposed that anyone who had ever wondered about the life of an Unspeakable would probably be surprised at the thoroughly mundane, almost Muggle appearance of most of the offices. Colin Morse's office was full of books and clutter, and the yellow walls were barely visible behind the piles of books that he brought and hardly ever got the time to read. Severus was reading the titles behind his superior's head, keeping impatience at bay, when finally Morse mopped his forehead (gradually merging with the rest of his head, under the thinning hair) with a handkerchief and plopped into his chair.

"I need your help, I'm afraid. Or the MLE says that they need our help; frankly, I can't quite see what you or I can do about it," he added distractedly.

A snort. "Perhaps you should start at the beginning."

Morse was a man hardly ever perturbed, perhaps because, by its very nature, the Department of Mysteries was not often concerned with matters of overmastering urgency. Not for him the fast-paced affairs of the Auror Office or the vagaries of the Wizengamot, where tempers ran high and the media was a perpetual, undesired presence. He had been so long in the Ministry that he could remember back when owls, rather than flying memos, were used to send interdepartmental messages, and he had grown old and placid in the department. It was unusual to see him so agitated.

"I've just got a memo from the MLE. They say need one of my people from the Time division to get there as soon as. I confess I'm not sure I was right to interrupt your evening, but I got a second memo within five minutes, to much the same effect."

"Did the memos give a reason? We are not answerable to the MLE and they can't just haul Unspeakables from bed out of whimsy."

"It's hardly bedtime, Severus. There isn't any time to explain. I've already made you a Pass. Here, take it, and go up to level two or the Minister will have my head. Though Merlin knows what good you're going to be."

Severus felt his face twist into the old, familiar sneer at the unintended insult. "I doubt I can be of any assistance to those buffoons at the Auror office."

Morse, for the first time since Severus' entrance, looked up, and laughed suddenly at the annoyance on the other man's face; Severus found himself relaxing, and turned to go. Morse's voice, urging and friendly, followed him: "Get going, there's a good man, and come tell me about it when you're done. I'll be waiting here. Goodness knows there hasn't been any excitement in the department for a long time, and I could use a good story."

/ \ / \ / \

Severus, who had never used a Pass before, was intrigued about how it worked. He had been told, back when he had first taken the job, that the Pass enabled him to communicate with Ministry employees outside of his own department, temporarily deactivating the spell that constricted the Unspeakables' throats whenever they talked about their work. He had never believed that he would ever need the Pass, in no small part because he felt no desire to communicate with anybody at all. It was fascinating, now, to feel the spell loosen itself around his throat as he showed the pass to a harried-looking, spotty young man at the entrance of Level Two. The young man handed him a Portkey, and before he knew it he was in the familiar hallways of St Mungo's.

He allowed himself a moment to stare.

The scene was familiar: in the late evening the corridors were quiet, with some visitors and relatives slumped and sleeping in their chairs against the walls. If memory served him correctly, he was in one of the hallways of the ground floor, where Artefacts Accidents were treated. The Healers in their lime green robes hardly noticed his arrival. The place looked as it did when he had been discharged from the hospital and propelled into his new life.

The one detail out of place was Hermione Granger, former student, Auror, and recipient of the Order of Merlin (first class), looking at him impatiently from across the hallway. Her formal black robes matched her formidable expression.

"I was told to expect you five minutes ago, Professor Snape," she said by way of introduction. She seemed to say it without malice, though—only with the distraction of somebody whose business was calling them urgently elsewhere.

"Miss Granger," he said coldly. Her abruptness had surprised him. He had always been accustomed to kindness from her, for she had treated him with apologetic courtesy since discovering that she had unwittingly left him to die on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. He found himself a little offended, and wondered why this should be so.

"Right. You'll want to see the crime scene," she said in the same distracted way.

Crime scene?

His previous sightings of her had afforded him little opportunity to know her further, but he took inventory of the changes in her now that she swept past him, brushing off his cold greeting and motioning for him to follow her.

She was still a tiny creature, a full foot shorter than him, but she moved about with that lack of self-consciousness that characterized the transition from adolescent to adult. He had seen it in other students he had taught. Hermione Granger was by far the most competent of them all, and he allowed himself a moment of uncharacteristic, almost avuncular pride at how he had trained her well, not simply in Potions but in handling an environment where praise was not given or spoken freely. The rigors of his Potions classroom had been a training ground for her Aurorship. He had not been a completely useless teacher.

Silently—and occasionally murmuring things into a small device he'd come to recognize as a cellular phone—she led him through the hallways and into a ward where the walls were painted yellow. One of the beds was surrounded by a throng of Aurors, some of them taking photographs of the scene and the others making notes obscurely. A hush fell over them all as Hermione Granger stepped into the room, accompanied by the infamous Snape. He had thought at first that the silence had been because of him, due to either reverence or disgust; at a second glance, he noticed, however, that rather than stare at him in either admiration or repugnance, most of them were looking at Hermione sideways, with expressions caught between calculating and concerned.

One of the Aurors stepped forward—Ravenclaw, class of '91, Severus thought distractedly. "Thank you for coming so promptly, Professor Snape," said the Auror. "I'm not sure if you remember me. Anthony Markham. I'm presently head of the Auror Office. I'm in charge of this investigation."

"I've received no briefing whatsoever," Severus heard himself say as he accepted the other man's handshake. He had no idea what he was doing there or why he, a theorist and analyst in one of the most boring divisions of the entire Ministry, should be called to assist in what appeared to be a high-profile investigation—since Markham was head of the entire Auror office himself, and would have no time to personally tend to trifling problems. "An investigation, you say?" Behind Markham, Hermione Granger was looking at Severus with that same urgent, expectant look.

Markham nodded. "Yes. At first we thought it was an accident, but then we realized we couldn't, ah, rule out the possibility of a homicide." Something made the man stumble clumsily over his words. He indicated the nearest bed, where there was no body—only the evidence of rumpled sheets, a thick, dark red potion spilled in drops and dollops all over the floor, and a strange, shiny white substance scattered near the head of the bed.

"And you'd like me to take a look?"

"Yes. Please."

"I fail to see how I can be any help," Snape said, even as he surveyed the scene at a distance. "I'm certain your staff is much more qualified. I study time, Markham, and not death."

"You study _Potions_," Hermione Granger cut in.

It was almost like Legilimency, the way Markham looked at her sideways and seemed to convey his exasperation and annoyance and at the same time to give a command. Auror Granger, obviously reluctantly, subsided and stepped back, avoiding the stares of her colleagues and fixing her gaze on the bed.

"We have a forensics team, sir, but there's a particular substance in this crime scene we haven't encountered before. At least, outside an hourglass, if you know what I mean."

And then it dawned on Severus: the white substance, which turned yellow and golden and then white again as he came ever more close, was the sand of a Time-Turner. There was no need for Markham to spell it out, and Severus held up a hand to silence the senior Auror when the latter looked poised to explain. Severus, aware of the aurors' eyes on him, crouched on the floor. He couldn't come too near lest it touch him, but he knew without a doubt that the substance was the same pearlescent stuff he had in front of him everyday, analyzing it and breaking it into components and properties.

Somebody had broken a Time Turner, and that somebody was possibly—most probably—a murderer.

/ \ / \ / \

The next morning found him slumped over his desk. It was still barely light outside; through the enchanted windows that showed him the city rather than the earth in which the Department of Mysteries was buried, Severus saw the streetlamps extinguished, star-like until they were put out by magic. He knew now what had woken him from his brief nap; someone had come through the door, and was now waiting for him to acknowledge their presence.

He thought that it was a rather bad show for a former spy. He had expected Colin Morse and had prepared a suitably wry, annoyed remark; on turning around, however, he was faced for the second time by the unexpected sight of Auror Granger. This time she was standing behind him and holding out a paper cup of something warm, something smelling deliciously like coffee. Her face was drawn and tired—much, he suspected, like his own—but, in contrast to the brisk manner of the previous evening, she smiled at him ruefully. Wondering at himself, he accepted the cup from her.

"Good morning," she said, looking almost embarrassed, although he didn't know why. "We've sent in the results you gave us. I wanted to thank you. I spoke to Professor Morse and he said he'd had to call you from home. I'm grateful that you came so promptly, considering."

Severus looked at her over the cup she'd handed him. Steam billowed, attractively and fragrantly, from the lip of the paper cup. Surely she didn't think he would drink it directly, without verifying its contents? But she did; she was still standing and looking at him expectantly, clutching in her hands a cup of her own. Actually, he admitted to himself, he really wanted to drink the coffee _now_, but felt no desire to let her see him so incautious.

"Is there a particular reason for this… token?" he said, indicating the cup.

A quick, embarrassed smile. "I—no. I mean, yes. To be quite honest with you, I did want so much to be in your good graces when you came in last evening. I still do want it. I'm certain we'll be needing more of your help—that I would be needing more of it. I think I got off on the wrong foot with you, however. I had hoped… that a cup of coffee might help ease the way?"

He was not above being startled at the transparency of her admission—that she had brought the coffee with an ulterior motive in mind. Grown-up, unselfconscious, self-possessed Hermione Granger.

"Is there any reason that you behave as though it were a personal favor to you, rather than a directive from the Auror Office and my own supervisor?"

The corners of her lips turned down before twisting again into a wry smile, a strange combination of apprehension and amusement.

"Would it be very forward of me to ask to explain it over breakfast? It has been a very trying night, and I think you might just be as hungry as I am."

/ \ / \ / \

It was surreal. He had no idea why he had agreed to it, because he was not the kind of man who went into cafés with former students—and Hermione Granger was only tolerable at best, really—and he did want to go home, back into the covers and the quiet of Spinner's End. And yet he found himself following her into a small, unsophisticated coffee shop half a block away from the Ministry. The sun had risen fully, and it was a new day.

She ordered for them—after asking his permission, at which he bristled but demurred because he was too tired to be argumentative. He had grown soft, he decided as they took their seats. He hadn't slept under eight hours since the end of the war, and where he once would have endured a sleepless night with equanimity, now he could barely keep his eyes open. Auror Granger appeared to notice this, because he became aware of another cup of coffee being pushed in his direction.

When they had both eaten a little, Severus was a little more ready to listen to her story.

"I was on my way home yesterday evening, when Perks—another auror, you might know her—stopped me outside the Ministry. She and Markham immediately brought me back to Level Two and told me that a woman had been murdered, and that I was a prime suspect."

Severus' surprise registered on his face. Auror Granger caught his expression and laughed—an abrupt sound, not entirely without humor. "Yes, it's ridiculous. But I have to say, the story _can_ be… convincing.

"Supposedly, around half past four yesterday or thereabouts, I crept into the Artefacts Accidents ward and ripped the intravenous line of a Blood Replenisher from a woman's wrist, and caused her death. I was also supposed to have undone the charms that would have alerted the Healers to the woman's deteriorating condition."

"Why you?"

"I match the description given by a little girl who was visiting her sleeping grandmother. She—I mean the little girl—is supposed to have seen the entire thing, though nobody else was awake inside the wards to corroborate her story."

"How should that description be enough to make you a suspect? Surely you were at your office, or wherever it is that aurors spend their work days."

"I was getting to that," she said, allowing herself a small smile at his interruption, and he understood that she was gratified by his interest. "Unfortunately, not only was the description a perfect match—from the color of my robes to my hair—but because of the Time Turner sand found around the crime scene, everybody seemed to remember that I had a record of Time Turner use, and if I'd got my hands on one… well, let's just say alibis don't seem to mean a thing in this case." She smiled wryly.

Severus sighed to himself. It all sounded so circumstantial—and not exactly the sort of thing he should have been wasting his time on. "And who is this mysterious lady you are supposed to have murdered?"

To his surprise, a blush crept up from her neck to suffuse her face. "That's another thing," she said. "I—um. Have you ever heard of a Laureen Denby?"

Suddenly it dawed on Severus. Laureen Denby—Hogwarts 2000, long past his time—was chaser for the Chudley Cannons. And formerly mistress to fellow chaser Ronald Weasley, who was, in turn, formerly fiancé of the woman sitting across Severus right now.

Severus had read in the _Prophet_ in the Time Division lounge (for he had no subscription of his own) that, three days ago, Miss Denby had fallen off her broom during the Cannons-Puddlemere game, being knocked over by a Bludger. She'd sustained blunt trauma to the chest, and had been sent to St Mungo's, where mediwizards fussed over a lacerated aorta. They had said she would be fine in a few days.

The _Prophet_ had not neglected to mention the extremely public show of concern on Ronald Weasley's part, nor the speculation as to the present status of the Granger-Weasley engagement. Auror Granger and Mr Weasley had both neglected to comment.

Severus went for the obvious solution. "Surely you wouldn't be sitting here right now if Markham hadn't cleared you. Was it Veritaserum that convinced him?"

"Yes, in the end. It wasn't a treat and I was loath to let him administer it, but we had no choice. It's enough evidence for Markham, so he's letting me go, but it won't be enough for the court unless we have the actual culprit." She spread her hands in front of him on the table, as though to say, do you see my predicament?

"Is there any particular reason that you should still be on this investigation? You are cleared; surely it's not your responsibility to find the culprit yourself. In fact, because you are so closely involved in the victim's personal life, it might be best to stay away."

"Not a chance," she said cheerfully, spearing an egg yolk on her plate until it bled yellow. Severus wondered at this cheerfulness until he realized: she was pleased that he had not, for even a second, suspected her capable of murder. "I've been living a quiet life. You know, Sir. The kind of life where my every action, every trip into Diagon Alley doesn't get documented in the papers. In fact I haven't been featured in the paper since… um, well. Since Ron and I dissolved our engagement, to be quite honest. I have wanted to keep it that way. And this person who killed Laureen Denby has ruined that peace. I want to get him."

"You seem quite certain that all of this has been intended for you."

"It might not be. But the results are the same, regardless—I'm being framed. I don't know if you understand the implications this might have on my career."

He looked at her consideringly.

"Yes, I believe I do. At least a little. Markham is a sensible fellow and it will mean nothing to him. But should you be up for promotion, the higher offices might not…" he searched for the right words while drinking his last sip of coffee.

"…look favorably on a former murder suspect?" she supplied for him.

"It isn't only that. I mean that they might believe in your innocence, especially if the murder trial were to have conclusive evidence, but they may doubt your ability to keep your private life… private. The higher you go in the ranks of the Ministry, the more imperative it is that secrets should stay—"

"Secret," she finished, finding his choice of words amusing. "I understand that too. But that I can't fix. The most important thing for me now is to find out who really did it. I can't actually be on Markham's official investigation," she said, a trifle uncomfortably perhaps, "but he's given me leave to, shall we say, make my own inquiries."

Breakfast was finished; around them, the other diners seemed to be making an exodus. He looked at his watch: a quarter to eight. Morse would understand if he didn't show up at the office today. He moved to get up, and Auror Granger did the same; they both put Galleons on the table (having tacitly agreed that neither would foot the bill in its entirety) and moved for the doors.

In the sunshine outside, while they lingered uncertainly near the door, Severus asked her, "I have one last question for you. I have a suspicion in my mind and I would like you to confirm it for me. It was you, wasn't it, who decided that I should be called from the Time division? You were the one waiting for me at St Mungo's, and today you showed up with an apologetic coffee and invited me to an apologetic breakfast."

She smiled then. "Yes, it was me."

"But why?"

"I think I wanted someone on my side. You are a Legilimens and I have never been an expert in either Legilimency or Occlumency. You would know, more than anyone, that I never did it, and your proof would be better than Veritaserum. More than that, you are extremely well-versed in the properties of Time Turner sand, because it's a Potion, and you are a Potions Master in the Time Division."

"How could you _possibly_ know that?" It was forbidden, even impossible, to know his work without the necessary authorization. Even within the higher levels of the Ministry; even within the MLE.

"I…" An inelegant shrug. "I couldn't be entirely certain. But remember that we broke into the Department of Mysteries once. We know that there is a Thought Chamber, a Death Chamber, a Space Chamber, a Time Chamber and the Love Chamber, in addition to the Hall of Prophecies. Assuming you would be in one of them, I believe you wouldn't choose to work in the, um, the Love Chamber, the Death Chamber or the Hall of Prophecies, because of their…" At the sudden, steely look in Severus' eyes and the way his body turned away from her, she added hastily, "because of, ah…"

"Never mind that," he said coolly. "And why not the Space Chamber?"

"I haven't ruled that out yet, really," she said. "But between the two, I thought the Time chamber would be better because there is one substance, one _Potion_, central to the study. You don't have much of a background on Astronomy or physics, at least beyond Hogwarts level, so I thought the Space chamber less likely."

She looked up at him from beneath a layer of fringe—suddenly unsure, almost imploring. "And even if I were wrong, even if you weren't working in any of those divisions, you would still be the best person to have on my side, because outside of the MLE itself, you are the most capable person I know when it comes to getting to the bottom of things. And all the other reasons I said before still apply."

She came closer to him, her abrupt movement causing him to step backward; she sighed and stepped back as well. "Really, in the end, what I need is your help. And the thing is, even if our investigation isn't official, Markham is willing to approach your supervisors as though it were. Which means… which means you'll still be working for the Ministry. Please help me."


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

"I think it sounds like a waste of time" was Draco Malfoy's opinion.

"I don't remember asking for your input," Snape said, surly and irritated at Draco's flippant manner.

The younger man, sprawled on a moth-eaten chair by the window, fixed Snape with a sour look. Draco was dressed in Muggle clothes, as he was every week, when he Apparated home from university to visit his godfather. He looked more like a Muggle these days, anyhow; Merlin knew how Lucius Malfoy would have reacted to the sight of his son, completely at home in his Muggle university, dating a Muggle woman, unapologetically dressed in the latest Muggle fashions and living in a comfortable Muggle flat.

And yet he seemed… happy. Snape was not accustomed to describing any friends or acquaintances as such. There had always been some threat of misery and danger around the corner. Draco, as a boy, had been petulant, manipulative, spoiled and yet all kinds of endearing; happy and free and wild, and sure of the affection of his parents. He hadn't been that happy, or so much at ease in his own skin, for a long time, until now that he had found his niche in the Muggle world. Snape contemplated these changes as he nursed a cup of Draco's badly-brewed tea.

"I don't know why she came to you. You don't owe her any favors," Draco said, picking at a loose thread on the armchair. It seemed to Snape that his godson nursed a grudge against Granger and Potter, not for spats or misdeeds in their years at Hogwarts, but for their having left Severus to bleed to death in the Shrieking Shack, so long ago. Severus told himself that he was not flattered at this irrational, unexpected defense, but it was useless to deny that small, pleased thrill. Nobody had come to his defense, about anything, for a very long time.

He wanted to tell Draco that he had had no intentions of helping Granger in the beginning because the case was no more than a matter of academic interest. Crime, indeed, seemed to take on a new dimension when it was impossible to fix an alibi on anyone, and Severus had no desire to get mixed up in the inevitable publicity of it all when there was nothing in it for him—except, of course, the interruption of tedium. A small incident, however, had won him over to Granger's case.

The papers lost no time in picking up the story of Hermione Granger, murderess and woman scorned. As a rule, Severus did not waste money on a subscription to the _Prophet_, because its contents were not likely to affect the current circuit of his life. Late in the afternoon, however—mere hours after his unprecedented meal with the woman in question—he found himself pausing in front of the paper in the Time lounge, suddenly reconsidering.

The front page bore the headline: "GRANGER-WEASLEY SPAT LEADS TO MURDER." A photo of Auror Granger was on the left; in it she waded through a small crowd that had collected in the Ministry lobby, and Severus could imagine that her mouth formed the words "No comment." She looked angry, dismissive.

Not too different, then, from how Severus had been when he had been on the receiving end of the same endless questions.

To the right of her photo was one of Ronald Weasley in his Cannons robes, looking harassed and sorrowful. Severus, who was accustomed to thinking of the boy as a surly, inconsiderate lout, saw suddenly that Weasley had changed at least as much as Auror Granger. In both of them, qualities that had long been theirs had rearranged themselves and had been tempered with time, so that it was possible still to see Harry Potter's sidekick in those hapless eyes, and yet impossible to see Weasley now as anything but a man.

This was a man Granger had loved; Granger, with her quick wit and common sense, had fallen in love with someone who had never been her match in all of the things that really mattered. Without warning or mercy, an overwhelming feeling of pity came over Severus—pity that she should have to suffer both the loss of someone loved, and at the same time to be suspected of that one unforgivable crime. The losses seemed to him irretrievable.

Laureen Denby, too, was a tragic figure. Her fresh face and red hair looked up at him from a spread in the newspaper. It was discouraging to think of someone like this, someone so recently full of robust health and life, dying alone and unnoticed in a ward. It seemed hardly to matter that she was at the center of the Granger-Weasley engagement squabbles. The wizarding media had found a heroine for the moment, and they stuck to it.

The world seemed to be universally against Hermione Granger. On n the inner pages he found interviews with Auror Granger's former friends and professors, all shaking their heads about the fact that they never would have thought her capable of it, but it's always the quiet ones, and so forth.

That moment was what decided him.

"Rita Skeeter will be all over this." Draco's voice, pleading and whining, broke into his thoughts. "You shouldn't touch it. You'll get dragged across the mud with her."

"You don't think I should help someone in need?" Severus said wryly. "And, you know, as a matter of fact, Skeeter has been uncharacteristically silent on this point."

"She's Hermione _Granger_, for goodness' sake. She'll get a little bad press, but she'll never get arrested for anything, and within a few months everyone will have forgotten about it, Rita Skeeter included."

"Is that what your fiancée says?" Severus asked, eager to change the subject.

"We don't subscribe to the _Prophet_," Draco said, almost proudly. He had become engaged to Astoria Greengrass sometime in the last year. The lady in question, though knowing little about the wizarding world in general, was extremely interested in Draco's life in particular. She was known to hold an opinion, very vocally, about anything with which Draco chose to busy himself—and now, by extension, about Severus.

Severus had never asked, but he thought that Astoria might have objected, at least at first, to Draco's weekly visits to Spinner's End. It had done nothing for his opinion of Miss Greengrass, but had doubled his gratitude for Draco's affection.

Returning to sobriety, Draco contemplated his godfather with a serious air. "How _has_ it been going, really? Do you think you can do anything to help her? You don't have to say anything if it's classified information."

"It isn't. It's officially under the jurisdiction of the MLE and so is open to the public; I'm just helping out." Draco knew nothing of the specifics of Severus' job, and seemed fairly intrigued whenever Severus brought it up. "In any case, you won't get anything from me that you couldn't get from the _Prophet_. I merely confirmed that the substance on the floor of the crime scene came from the sand of the Time-Turner. Based on its change of color through oxidation, I estimated that it had been lying there, exposed, for about four hours, although it's impossible to be absolutely certain."

"What time did you arrive at the hospital?"

"Half past seven, or thereabouts."

"And they spotted the open IV line at—"

"Around six-thirty."

Draco whistled. "They act fast."

"They do."

"So the Time-Turner was broken between three-thirty and six-thirty."

"Yes. It doesn't mean much, however, because by that time—"

"Visiting hours are over. I know." Draco had spent many hours visiting him, and a handful of other Slytherins, during the aftermath of Voldemort's death.

"Yes. And there probably wasn't anyone among the patients in the ward who was conscious and who could have identified the little girl. Those patients are under extremely strong pain medications."

"What was she doing there, anyway, if visiting hours were over?"

"She said she'd hidden under her grandmother's bed, and nobody had seen her or asked her to leave."

"That is a convenient little excuse."

"That it is." Severus looked at the clock above the mantelpiece. "My second line of inquiry is to find out everything I can about the girl. Auror Granger's is to look at all the pensieved interviews with the girl and to check if she's telling the truth. Veritaserum can't be legally used on children under eleven, which complicates matters."

"Severus!" Draco said suddenly, with an unexpected laugh.

Severus looked at him, startled. "What?"

"You must be incredibly bored. I think you've checked that clock thirty times since I came in. Am I keeping you from anything?"

Suddenly uncomfortable, Severus turned his face from the clock. "Not at all."

/ \ / \ / \

Draco had left, soon enough, and Severus had gone upstairs to his room to prepare for the appointment. It was hardly five minutes before his doorbell rang, and he composed himself, flinging on cloak and scarf and hoping he did not look too excited when he opened the door.

"I'm sorry I'm a little early." She seemed displeased and Severus felt something in him sink, until he realized that she was distracted, turning her wand over and over in her hands. "I was able to gain access for an interview, but we've got to go right now. They won't let me speak to her, of course, but I can watch you and—here," she said abruptly, rooting in her pockets until she came up with a small black disc.

He took it from her. "What is it?"

"It's an earpiece. You can stick it in your ear and I can prompt you in case there are any questions that I'd like you to ask in particular—that is, if you'll agree to use it," she added hastily, as though suddenly remembering who he was.

Not quite recovered from her brisk reception, Severus said, "One does wonder: if you were so intent on having the job done by an expert, whyyou didn't hire a private detective."

It was there for only a moment, but Severus thought—to his shame—that there was a flicker of embarrassment in her eyes, before she stood taller and crossed her arms in front of her. "I'm afraid I couldn't afford it," she said quietly. "I have no inheritance from my parents, and an auror-in-training doesn't get paid very much."

The moment threatened to become awkward, and Severus, who was instantly sorry (though he never would have admitted to it), felt compelled to break it.

"You might show me how this works, then."

She smiled then, and though momentarily distracted by the change this made in the appearance of her face, he soon concentrated o the black disc. He couldn't help but look at the little thing with disdain, though inside he felt a little niggle of worry. He knew a moment of calm, however, when she smiled as he put the disc in his ear, and they Disapparated together.

/ \ / \ / \

It was unfair.

That was his first thought. The child, when he first saw her, reminded him of Draco as a little boy; Draco who had once got Gregory Goyle in trouble for breaking a vase. Narcissa Malfoy and Yersinia Goyle had not spoken for two weeks, all because Draco had pointed a finger at Goyle while the remains of a vase lay scattered between them, and the young Crabbe, who had seen everything, hadn't said a word of defense for Goyle.

This child was nowhere near as angelic-looking as a prepubescent Malfoy, but she had an intelligent expression, and she looked up at him while her head tilted chin-down, so that her green eyes looked wider, more innocent. She was sitting on a chair across from him in an interview room at Level Two, and the chair seemed to swallow her up. This, Severus knew without knowing how, was precisely the effect the child desired.

He had never been good at dealing with children. Lily was the only child to whom he had ever dealt kindness or solicitude, because in his mind she was the only one who had deserved it; when he left childhood behind, he saw children dropped off by their parents at Platform 9 and three-quarters, or staring at him from across his classroom—warm and well-cared for in their clothes and in the security of their parents' affection, of their knowledge of _worth._ He had never had this sense of entitlement, and encountering it in any child (except his godson) stirred in him an immediate dislike.

This child was all entitlement. The law did not permit interviews with children alone, if they desired to have their guardians with them, just at it did not permit the use of Veritaserum in the very young. This child's mother was a middle-aged half-blood called Eleanor Sharpe, and she seemed to wait on the child with a servile, almost sycophantic sweetness. At the moment she was confined to the back of the room where the child could not see her face, but her silly, empty expression irked him even at this distance.

A picture swam into Severus' mind of Hermione Granger, harassed and sad while she was barraged with questions by reporters.

"What is your name?" he asked the child quickly, as though to rid his mind of the image.

"Lizzie Sharpe," she said. There was a riot of blond curls on that little head, and they bounced while the child squirmed in her chair.

"Elizabeth?" Severus asked, loath to repeat the horrendous nickname.

"Lizzie," she said petulantly, and he wanted to roll his eyes. He imagined that Hermione, who made occasional sounds at him through his earpiece, wanted to roll her eyes too.

"Well, then, Lizzie. Why don't you tell me about what you saw yesterday afternoon."

The account was the same—though this time told more slowly and with much more elaboration. She had seen a lady go into the ward when she was hiding under her grandmother's bed; she had been playing there and hadn't wanted to leave when the nurses called out that visiting hours were over. Had the lady appeared in the room or had she gone through the door? The lady in black robes had appeared in the room, Lizzie Sharpe said resolutely, and had come to stand beside one of the beds.

"What did the lady do?" Markham spoke to the child as he stood behind Severus.

The lady in black had said some very unladylike words, before pulling on something, and before Lizzie knew it there was a lot of blood everywhere. There had been the sound of bells, but the lady raised her wand and stopped it, and so nobody had come to get her.

"Is there anything that you remember about the lady? About how she looked—her clothes," Snape said. Hermione, speaking into his ear, said, "Ask her about my shoes," and he obeyed.

For the first time a flash of hesitation seemed to cross that small, not-quite-pretty face, before Lizzie Sharpe said, "They were black, and when she walked, I saw two blue Ms on the side of the shoe."

Hermione gasped into the earpiece, and when Severus let the unguarded surprise appear on his face, he caught for a fleeting moment the child's expression. There was a sudden look of triumph there—triumph at having got something right.

Behind her, Mrs Sharpe smiled and nodded; her brown hair shook with the movement of her haid.

Changing tacks, Severus asked the child calmly, "Where was your mother at this time? Surely she shouldn't have left you alone."

"She brings me," Lizzie Sharpe said. "She leaves me with grandmum, and she comes to get me after."

"Don't you get lonely, playing alone?" Markham pressed.

"No. I'm always alone at home."

The interview dwindled into inconsequential questions, the answers doing nothing but reaffirming the fact that the girl knew her story and was sticking to it. For a child of eight or nine, she seemed to have a good eye for detail, Severus thought grudgingly.

"Do you live with anyone other than your mother?" That was Markham. Severus sighed. He was about ready to leave.

"No. It's just me and Mum."

Markham stood. The interview, it seemed, was now over for the both of them, and Severus caught it quickly before it disappeared—that small flash of relief as Lizzie Sharpe jumped from her chair. "I'm sure Mummy will give you something nice," Markham said wearily, "because you worked hard at telling the truth today."

"Yes!" Lizzie said as Mrs Sharpe guided her out of the room. "Mummy always does what I want."

/ \ / \ / \

After the interview with Lizzie Sharpe, Granger had been called away—presumably to attend to some other job—and Severus Apparated to Diagon Alley before the interview could be discussed between them. He wandered in and out of shops in a desultory manner, hoping that something, any small inconsistency, would make itself known to him while he distracted himself by buying groceries and Potions supplies.

The girl was definitely lying.

He could not have answered why he was so convinced of this, and he told himself, instead, that it was the Veritaserum evidence of Hermione Granger's innocence that convinced him.

He made ready to go home, looking wistfully at a new cauldron on a window display—an expense that, he was certain, was entirely too much. He kept stock of ingredients, however, though he never used them—just let them lie, gathering dust in the basement, while he told himself he would have time to brew later on, when he was not so busy.

When finally he Apparated home and opened the door, he was surprised to see Draco Malfoy in the same seat that the younger man had occupied that afternoon.

"What are you doing here?"

Draco looked up from his new copy of _The Prophet_'sevening edition_. _

"There you are. You're a bit surprising these days, Severus. Most days I expect to find you home by seven."

"And most days I expect you not to have any interest in the goings-on of wizarding Britain. Would you care to explain the publication in your hand?"

Draco rolled up the paper and stood to help Severus with the older man's purchases of vegetables and cuts of meat. Soon enough they were sitting in the kitchen with a hastily-made pot of tea before them, while Draco unrolled the paper and spread it out on the table.

"I told Astoria about your involvement in the Granger case this afternoon. I don't know if you'll believe this, but she all but ordered me to find Hermione Granger and make sure she didn't intend to bring your name to the public's attention."

Severus sat up straighter. "That _is_ surprising."

"I suspect Astoria's grown rather fond of you," Draco said obliquely, looking at his godfather sideways. "But Severus, why didn't you _tell_ me Hermione Granger was like _that_?"

"Like what?" Severus said, suddenly bewildered.

"You didn't say she was gorgeous." Draco waggled his finger at the paper, where, from a small corner of the front page, Hermione Granger looked up at them with unconcerned eyes. "Face like a painting."

"I—she isn't," Severus said, taken aback and fighting the uncomfortable tingling of his ears. "For Merlin's sake, Draco, you've known her since she was eleven. You've seen her face before."

"But it isn't the same face, and it isn't the same person," Draco insisted. "Look at that. Beautiful bones, smooth brow, animated expression. Who would have thought little Granger would turn out to be so full of—full of—"

"—Character, I think you'll find," Severus said despite himself.

"Character," Draco said, rolling the word around his mouth. "That's the perfect word."

"You can't know that from a newspaper portrait," Severus said dismissively, turning away. "I assume you did go to meet her?"

"I found her house. I got directions from Ginny Thomas—Ginny Weasley, I think you might remember her," Draco added. "Her husband is friends with Astoria's cousin, whose sister went—"

"Spare me the details," Severus said caustically, suddenly tired.

"Yes. Of course. She has this tiny apartment on a Muggle street in London—completely unsuited to her, I think you'll find; one bedroom with a kitchen and bath, the entire space smaller than your office at Hogwarts. Much better decorated, however," he hastened to add, earning a scowl from Severus, which Draco repaid with a smirk of his own. "She doesn't live with anyone else, though, and that's a mercy. She was there when I knocked, and I'm sure I surprised her, but Hermione and I got to talking and I—"

"_Hermione_?"

"She told me to call her that," Draco said, a little defensively.

"You seem to have become remarkably friendly for such a short-lived interview."

"Well, she gave me tea."

"Yes, and charmed you with her smooth brow and lovely bones," Severus retorted, fighting the familiar sinking feeling in his stomach. "I thought you were in a hurry to finish some assignment or other."

"I'm never in a hurry to do much of anything when a woman like Hermione Granger offers me tea. Have you noticed the way she talks?—but of course you have; you notice everything. It's that way she has of making you feel like she's intensely interested in what you're saying. I suppose it's her version of kindness. It's much better than any version I've ever known, and that's for certain. Do you want to know what we talked about?"

"No," Severus said, rather more firmly than he intended. "That is, I'm sure you ought to be getting home. I'm rather tired myself. We went to interview that horrendous child with the yellow wires for hair." As he said this he was acutely aware of his own hair, lank and unpleasant, flopping about his ears, and its sharp contrast to Draco's perfectly kept, silvery hair. "So you didn't finish your work?"

"How could I have?" Draco said, suddenly and ridiculously distracted. "She's far more interesting than any woman I've ever met, not to mention any homework."

"Far more interesting, do you mean, than even Astoria?"

"Oh," Draco said, appearing to come back to himself. "Well. That's a little different. Astoria is wonderful and I'll marry her within a year, but she's quite a different thing."

"Is she?"

"Yes. I don't think anyone should marry a woman like Hermione Granger. She'd always be there to distract you with her face and her hands and her words, and then how could you get any work done?"

On this uncharacteristically pragmatic note Draco rolled up the _Prophet_ and made to leave. "Speaking of which, there is still that bit of homework I'm to do. For a professor, you know—he has me running errands as though I were a house-elf.

"The thing I really came to tell you is that I think you should go ahead and help her. I've never been one to feel sorry for any of those Gryffindors, but within two minutes it's plain to anyone how hard Hermione Granger works, how hard she tries to keep her head down. People like that should be given a chance to live their lives as quietly as they want to."

Draco left soon after, and Severus found that he had lost all appetite for the dinner he had been planning on making. He doused the lights and crawled upstairs and into bed without his dinner.

In the space between sleeping and waking, he thought of those words of Draco's—that she was a different person from the one she had been at eighteen, when she'd graduated. Severus scoffed sleepily at this—Severus, who knew, in fact, that she was very much the same face and the same person; grown up, adult and tempered and strong, but very much the same.

/ \ / \ / \

_end of chapter_


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you so much for reading! And thank you again to savine_snape for the wonderful prompt. And to my friend Laureen after whom the murder victim is named :-D I hope this answers all your questions. And I hope someone recognizes the veiled Evelyn Waugh references below.

CHAPTER THREE

The next morning, after a brief exchange by owl, Severus found himself standing nervously at the door to Hermione Granger's rooms, in a dingy little building on the outskirts of the city. The neighborhood definitely didn't suit her. Why he was so nervous he couldn't exactly say.

Granger—_Hermione_—opened the door, and he found himself being led into a tiny space, at once sitting room and kitchen, with two small doors leading to a bedroom and a bath, he assumed. Her walls were papered yellow, he supposed, in an attempt to make the space seem brighter, less claustrophobic. There was not much furniture, but it seemed that everywhere he looked, at least, there were books. He looked around the room at them, catching glimpses of familiar titles, while Hermione looked at him expectantly and invited him to sit down by the kitchen counter. It doubled, he supposed, as dinner table, breakfast nook and workspace. He climbed awkwardly onto the stool next to hers, conscious of cat eyes following his every movement.

"You've read it?" she said, breaking abruptly into his thoughts.

Severus, who had been staring at the morbidly obese half-Kneazle lying impossibly on one of the shelves, looked at her. "I beg your pardon?"

"Oh, I'm sorry—I thought you were looking at my book." She nudged the cat (while cooing softly to it in a manner that left Snape wincing) off a softbound book with A LITTLE LEARNING stamped on the spine. Surprised, he took the book from her hands.

"I—yes." He swallowed. "When I was much younger. Back when I was in Hogwarts, in fact." It was the biography of Lance Goodenough, who pioneered the combination of charms and acute-relief potions in wound treatment. In reality it was more like the sarcastic musings of an intellectual giant, but Severus wasn't one to complain about the sardonic central figure who reminded him so much of himself.

"I always thought he was a lot like you," she said softly, echoing his thoughts, and when his eyes shot upward to look at her face, she took the book from him and somehow what she said was not an insult anymore. "I've always admired you both."

"I don't believe I ended up much like him," he said, thinking of his insignificant job and the mess he had made of life so far.

Auror Granger laughed. "Oh yes," she said. "People nowadays have no idea who he is. You, on the other hand, will have your face on chocolate frog cards from now to eternity, and minstrels will write songs about you."

He laughed, surprising both of them, feeling himself suddenly relax at this ridiculous picture she painted. He found himself suddenly forgiving her for liking Draco, for entertaining him.

It was some time before they finished making tea, and he faced her at last over the kitchen counter as they examined every detail of yesterday's interview.

"There has got to be an inconsistency somewhere," she said, her face framed by the tendrils of steam rising from her tea. He turned his face away and focused on his own mug.

"When she described your shoes, you gasped," he said slowly. "She was right about them. I saw them, too, when we went to breakfast yesterday morning. How common are those shoes?"

"Not as uncommon as my reaction might have led you to think. On second thought, I realized that every second witch probably uses them for work. They're from Madame Malkin's."

"I see."

"I can't begin to thank you," she said suddenly. "I know that I've taken time away from your work and from your routine. It has been a great comfort to know that I can rely on your help."

He was reliable, at least. He stayed silent, allowing both gratitude and disappointment to dissipate as he stirred his tea. Sometimes being reliable was better than being attractive, or being wanted.

Sometimes.

She went on talking. "There's something else, you know. Our two best hypotheses are that the girl is lying to cover up for somebody else, or that somebody else Polyjuiced herself to appear like me. Whoever the culprit is, he or she most probably used a Time Turner to get there and accidentally broke it."

"Yes. I'm aware that it's impossible to Apparate into the ward after visiting hours."

"There is that. I've checked the other pensieve interviews with Lizzie Sharpe, and they haven't told me anything new."

"I have also verified the girl's background. Everything seems to check out. The mother, Eleanor Sharpe, has lived in the same house for the last six years with her mother (Lizzie Sharpe's grandmother, who was in the ward) and her daughter. The father's identity is unknown. The neighbors don't seem to know much about the family, because they've kept to themselves all these years."

Hermione—Auror Granger—put her chin in her hands. "At this point I'm inclined to consider Eleanor Sharpe as a suspect, but to be perfectly honest I can't see that happening. I also have no idea what motive she could possibly have."

"Perhaps she's Marietta Edgecombe's long-lost cousin," Severus said without thinking. At this Hermione looked at him, eyes wide and mouth open in surprise; he had spoken hastily, and longed to convince her that he hadn't meant to insult her. He thought quickly of making a joke of it, but the moment had passed and Hermione had turned away, and he could no longer think of anything to say.

She stood up and took both their cups to the sink, Severus biting his tongue to keep from saying that he hadn't quite finished yet. He had no idea how he knew, because he was as unfamiliar with her body language as he was with most other people's, but he was certain that she was angry and a little insulted. Marietta Edgecombe had always been a sore spot with her, according to Professor McGonagall. Hermione's short-lived triumph and long-lived regret about her vindictive curse continued to be one of the buttons that her friends were careful not to push.

Severus felt tense and, to his own surprise, acutely miserable. She was standing at the sink with her back to him. We are not friends, Severus reminded himself. I can say these things to Draco and he can brush them off, but I can't do that with Hermione, because she is not my friend. She came to me for help—not for insults. As he was trying to construct an apology, Hermione came to his rescue with a short, abrupt laugh.

"I'm sorry," she said, turning to him, and he was relieved to see that she was smiling again. "I'm no longer used to having people tease me. I also don't enjoy being reminded of some decisions I made when I was younger. But I understand your point; it would be silly to rule out anybody due to a lack of motive."

She moved back to sit with him. "I suppose Professor McGonagall told you about Marietta Edgecombe."

"Yes," Severus said, hiding his relief. "Though I have to confess she was nowhere near as serious when she was talking about it to me. She might as well have said that the girl deserved it, the sneak."

She looked at him, surprised, and laughed; it was a high, clear sound. And to his own surprise she proceeded to ask him about his present life (carefully avoiding details about his work), and when the day ended and he stood to leave, he found that it was four hours since they discussed anything at all about the case.

/ \ / \ / \

Over the next three days, they spent more time together—Severus Apparating to her doorstep, somehow preferring her house to his own, although there was no denying that Spinner's End was more spacious, and made him less claustrophobic. But her rooms were filled with light, and were warm, and were just small enough so that her laughter echoed off the walls.

While the Wizengamot prepared a case against Hermione Granger and the _Prophet_ continued to dissect her private life (with only the _Quibbler_ coming to her defence), Severus nonetheless found himself distracted by the sheer number of things they had in common and the unexpected but undeniable pleasure of her company.

After Lily, he had thought himself content never to look on a woman again—even someone as pretty as Hermione Granger. There were times when he felt himself superfluous, knowing that she could do very well without him, and that her appreciation of his company now had so much to do with gratitude that he had agreed to help her. And he did try. He forgot about his own work—which was supposed to be focusing on how ingestion of Time Turner sand could result in de-aging or in aging forward—and focused solely on the Granger case.

It was a crime that anybody could have committed, had they so desired and if they had a Time Turner and Polyjuice Potion in their possession. The culprit could have been absolutely elsewhere for the relevant period of time. Severus spent part of the three days chasing down leads—checking possible connections between the Sharpes and Hermione Granger, listing any possible enemies that Hermione could have—and the rest of the time reporting to her, talking to her.

Sometimes it was possible to forget that she had had her heart broken fairly recently. She talked to him enthusiastically about a number of subjects, looking interested and cheerful—although she never mentioned Ron Weasley. She and Severus never talked about the bad press she was receiving, or how it affected her life. Laureen Denby's and Lizzie Sharpes's names, he knew, were whispered everywhere, but he was careful not to broach the subject.

This was the state of affairs until the last of those three days, when he Apparated to her door and she happened to be in the hallway; she hadn't been expecting him, and the look of unguarded pleasure on her face made something in his chest constrict. Her expression changed to one of wistfulness, however, when she noted his quick glance at the paper she held under her arm.

Seeing his inquisitive expression, she held the paper up to the dingy hallway lighting.

"I've made page one yet again," she said with a forced laugh. "If I'm correct they've got a feature of me on page six as well. I think this time they've dug up my Hogwarts history of love affairs. If they only knew those were nonexistent."

He followed her wordlessly into the apartment, wanting so badly to ask her how she was faring, but fearing that he was trespassing. He wondered how other people did it so easily—making friends, making that smooth transition from acquaintances to friends. Being certain that friendship was desired.

Wordlessly, too, she made tea, and checking to see if she would mind, he gingerly picked up the _Prophet_. There was a picture of Lizzie Sharpe and her mother on the front, standing in front of the steps of the Ministry of Magic during a short press conference. He turned away in disgust until, looking at the child's yellow hair and the mother's mousy brown bob, an idea began to ferment in his mind.

_I'm only happy to be helping the Ministry of Magic in bringing justice to the wizarding world,_ the child was quoted as saying (although the photograph showed her reading from a sheet of paper); _it's a reminder for all of us that the truth will always make itself known, and—_

"I suppose," Hermione called out to him over her shoulder, "that I should be grateful that Rita Skeeter hasn't got her claws into this case. I should have thought she would be the first to grab a story like this. There's no love lost between the two of us, as you may have heard, since I reported her to the Ministry as an unregistered animagus."

The knowledge was immediate and completely arresting. She continued to talk, but Severus said sharply, "Stop."

Hermione paused in the act of pouring tea and turned to him. "I'm sorry?"

"Hermione, stop. There is something that I…" He waved his hand distractedly. "I think I must go, and—"

"I know that look," she said, putting down the teapot and putting her hands on her waist. It was an attitude she had never before assumed with him, and he might have been distracted by it if there were not various pieces of the puzzle clicking into place in his mind.

"I think you've thought of something," she said. "Something to do with Laureen Denby's death. You have to tell me."

Severus looked at her for a long moment, before shaking his head as though to clear it. He stood and moved to the door, summoning the cloak he had left draped on a chair.

"I'm afraid I don't think there's any time to waste," he said. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes. If I am not, please do me the courtesy of informing Markham."

The last thing he saw, before he Apparated away, was Hermione Granger standing open-mouthed, framed by her doorway.

/ \ / \ / \

The Sharpes lived in a magical community east of London. He'd come to see the house, which was a composite of grey and brick-red, on one of his earlier attempts to learn more about the mother and daughter. He gained entrance now, using variations of the Do-Not-Notice charms and unlocking spells. The house was quiet even in the early afternoon; it seemed completely empty.

Hearing footsteps behind him as he walked through the front hall of the small house, he turned his wand on the intruder and came face to face with the woman he had left not five minutes ago.

Bewildered, Severus lowered his wand and asked, "What are you doing? I thought I told you to stay there!" Fear and a familiar but long-dormant feeling—exhilaration, anticipation—made his manner abrupt.

Hermione held her wand up to illuminate the dimly-lit hallway and pressed her face close to his.

"You can't just do that," she said. "Run away in the middle of a discovery, I mean. You were so distracted, you even called me by my first name. I knew there had to be something in it, so I followed you."

"How did you know I would come here?" They spoke in harsh whispers; Severus listened with half of his attention for the sound of creaking floorboards or voices.

"I tracked your apparition spell." She twirled her wand at him before stepping back, wearing a self-satisfied expression. "We developed the charm in the MLE. It's quite clever. Now what are we doing here? I've got your back."

_I've got your back._ Severus stored the words away, for pondering at some later time.

"There is something I need to try," he said. "An idea I would like to confirm. And I need both Sharpes here, to make sure."

"But what—"

Before either of them could finish, sounds of movement came from the sitting room, and Eleanor Sharpe, carrying a large tea tray, crossed the hallway from the sitting room into a kitchen. Severus and Hermione, with the aid of charms and while flattened against the wall of the hallway, inhaled sharply as Lizzie Sharpe emerged from the sitting room.

She was still as tiny and child-like as Severus remembered, and for one moment the sight of her made his carefully considered theories die an abrupt death. There was that moment, however—that moment when he'd seen that look of triumph on her face when she'd contributed her own little description of Hermione's Madame Malkin shoes. The triumph that came after fear, as though Lizzie Sharpe had been afraid, for a moment, that she might get something wrong. _Invent_ something wrong.

Before Hermione could stop him and without mercy or warning, he pointed his wand at the little girl and said _"Expelliarmus!"_

He had barely enough time to register the horrified noise that Hermione made at this point. Lizzie Sharpe was slammed against the wall, but the force was not enough to knock her unconscious; and instead of confusion, as one might have expected to see, Lizzie Sharpe's nine year old face wore a mask of contempt and anger better suited to her elders.

Her wand—a wand that a nine year old should not have possessed—flew into Severus' hand and she struggled to rise. Hermione, perhaps catching on more quickly than Severus had anticipated, whispered a binding curse, and invisible threads snaked their way around Lizzie Sharpe's body.

There was, however, one more Sharpe. Severus was afraid, for a moment, that he and Hermione wouldn't be fast enough to catch up. Even as he turned to the open kitchen door, Eleanor Sharpe was already coming through it—and her blank, _Imperius_-controlled expression was at odds with the intensity of the _Avada Kedavra_ that she flung at him.

It was a quick, exhilarating escape. He threw himself out of the way and took Hermione down with him, throwing another binding curse around Eleanor Sharpe. Her wand clattered to the floor.

The silence after this was deafening. When Severus turned quick eyes on Lizzie Sharpe, he saw that she was struggling frantically to loosen her bonds, and threw an Immobilizing hex her way. She was instantly still.

The quiet was broken only by Hermione's breathing and his own, quick and harsh, filling his ears. He released his hold on her, catching the unreadable expression of her eyes and suddenly aware of the liberties he had taken in holding her; he thought, she is so close; have I ever been this close? Both of them stood, and Severus was unsurprised by Lizzie Sharpe's expression of concentrated hatred.

"You mudblood _bitch—"_

"_Silencio,_" Severus muttered quickly, under his breath, looking at the child's bright green eyes, so much unlike Lily's own.

Hermione, looking at him gratefully, was panting. "I think I understand some of it," she told him between breaths. "Not quite everything. But first, I think both of us want to use a _Prior incantato._"

In the end Severus was the one to cast it. Hermione kept a trained eye on both prisoners while evidence of the most recent spells performed by Lizzie Sharpe's wand wafted through the room in a series of illusions.

"There it is," Severus murmured as a prior Imperius made itself known. Hermione looked at him and shook her head.

"You knew to look for this," she said. "You knew Eleanor Sharpe was under Imperius. I'm not entirely sure how the idea came into your mind, but I'm amazed all the same."

"It was something she said," Severus said, feeling distinctly uncomfortable that her attention seemed fixed, almost completely, on him. "When Lizzie Sharpe was leaving that room after our interview, she said something about her mother. That she always did what Lizzie liked. It seemed an unnecessary comment to make at the time, but in retrospect…"

"And Lizzie?" Hermione drew closer in her eagerness, and Severus willed himself not to step back as he had done, on that first day when she first came to ask him a favor. "I suspect that there is no real Lizzie Sharpe and that the _Imperius_ was necessary so Eleanor would testify that she has a daughter. But where did this person come from? And do you think he or she intended harm to me personally, or to harm Laureen Denby?"

"I think you can answer that for yourself."

Hermione gave him an irritated look, and he said, before she could launch into a tirade: "I believe imagining a pair of spectacles on her might help."

Her answering gasp was almost immediate. It was a pleasure to watch her mind at work; it was quick at putting together the pieces, once she had them to gather.

"_Rita_," she breathed, while the girl—formerly Rita Skeeter and now Lizzie Sharpe—silent and propped up against the wall still, made no answer. Hermione moved to undo the Silencio on Rita Skeeter, but Severus stopped her.

"It would be best, I think, to delay any such actions until the MLE gets here. I would not wish for you to hear any of what she wants to say, because they might disturb you unnecessarily."

Hermione looked at his hand on her arm and, suddenly flushing a furious red, Severus returned his hands to his pockets.

It was over, and his help was no longer required.

/ \ / \ / \

Things happened fairly quickly after that. After a Patronus message was dispatched to Markham and others at the MLE, Hermione and Severus had only to wait for them to arrive before confiscation of Skeeter's wand and inactivation of the Imperius curse on Eleanor Sharpe.

While the MLE lingered at the scene, the two stood uselessly outside the Sharpe home. Severus felt that, having been the one to arrive on the scene first, he should remain present, but he had no idea how to occupy his hands or where to look, what to say. Hermione was equally quiet, only occasionally breaking the silence with a tentative question.

"I suppose you knew that Time Turner sand can cause somebody to look younger?"

"Yes. Or at least I have been quantifying the magnitude of the effect—how long this de-aging will last, and whether it can be made permanent. And so forth." He shrugged, but she probably didn't see, because she was leaning against the front wall of the house—staring, unseeing, at the street. He was distracted, too. He couldn't fight the feeling that something in him was slowly disintegrating.

A long pause, and then: "So what do you think happened?"

Severus swallowed. He wished that he could leave—that she would dismiss him, so he could leave and go home and be alone.

"I suspect that she wanted to get an interview with Laureen Denby after the latter fell off her broom, and was willing to use any means to get it. Skeeter must have had a Time Turner, of course."

"An illegal one."

"Yes. And she must have used it to gain access to the ward after hours. We can't be entirely certain until we have her testimony, but I believe she accidentally dropped the Time Turner and broke it. Perhaps she slipped on something and fell on her face, and some of the sand went into her mouth—the immediate result being a transformation into a girl of nine. When she slipped she might also have pulled on the intravenous line of blood-replenishing potion on which Miss Denby's survival depended, ripping it off and causing Denby's death."

"And she must have turned off the monitoring charms, so nobody was being warned that Laureen's condition was growing more critical. But why would Rita do that? She didn't have to. She could simply have alerted anybody about the IV line. It was such an unnecessary death, and I can't believe that she could be so callous."

Severus shrugged. "I don't know. She might have wanted to avoid having to explain what she was doing there, particularly since the press are not normally allowed into the wards. One can lose one's job over those trifles."

Severus wondered if both of them were thinking of the income that Rita Skeeter must have lost, back when Hermione had held Skeeter's unregistered Animagus status over her head.

They lapsed into silence, before Severus posed a question of his own. "I suppose you have some idea of why it was you that she chose to incriminate?"

Hermione shrugged. "It seems that, apart from being a constant source of irritation to Rita Skeeter, I was a convenient target. Rita can be very clever, as I'm sure you know. I think my hatred for Laureen Denby is so widely known that she thought I'd have the best motive."

"Do you?" He asked, unable to stop himself. When she turned to look at him, he jerked his eyes away, looking out onto the street, at anything but her. "Do you still hate her."

Silence fell between them and Severus regretted having asked. He longed to take the question back. He longed to end the conversation and be absolutely elsewhere, anywhere but saying goodbye. Before he could say something, she whispered, "I don't think I do, anymore. There is nothing of hers that I want, not now."

In death, Miss Denby had no hold on Ron Weasley; Severus saw now, suddenly very clearly, that Weasley was free, and that there was nothing to stop Hermione… _Auror Granger_… from resuming that relationship. There was nothing to stop her, too, from pursuing an entirely different one; the specter of Draco flashed across his memory—Draco's effortless beauty and the way he called her, comfortably and with her permission, _Hermione. _

"I'm going to find Morse," he said abruptly. He added, more formally, "I congratulate you on the conclusion of your trials."

With a swish and a flick, he was gone.

/ \ / \ / \

On the morning of Rita Skeeter's trial, he stood on the threshold of the chamber where Hermione received congratulations from a repentant press. The trial had proceeded to everyone's satisfaction, and once it was verified that the prisoner was not truly of the age that she appeared to be, a vial of Veritaserum was presented and duly administered. Everything had spiraled on from there. Sitting as he had been, unseen, as one of the crowd, Severus allowed himself to be grateful for this satisfactory conclusion.

It was entirely possible that he would never see her again, and if that were to be the case, then he would go on as he had for the last years until he could forget that she was ever there. He could forget that she worked in the same Ministry, and he could forget how easy it was to Apparate into the hallway of her building, to seek her out, to talk to her and be quietly thrilled at the prospect of talking to someone so like himself.

The memory of Lily lay waiting at the end of this tunnel, a familiar and warm memory that should have been as comfortable to him as an old nightshirt. The thought of it, however, made his throat constrict—made him want to break away, to think about other things. It propelled him from his seat at the end of the trial, and guided his footsteps to the doorway, on the other side of which she, _Hermione_, stood.

He thought of the welcome silence of his house—of the easy and undemanding routine into which he had fitted, as into a groove, for the last years. All around him people pursued the things they really wanted; those with whom he had fought, during those dark years, moved on and got married and had families, as though propelled by the exhilaration of survival. For him the end of the war had been merely a relief, and for the first time he recognized that perhaps—simply, maybe—he was entitled to more than relief. Perhaps even anticipation, or the prospect of happiness and productivity.

An image of Hermione's smile as she sat with him, drinking tea, swam into his mind. He raised his hand to knock.

"Severus!"

He spun around, and looked into the expectant eyes of his godson.

"Come to congratulate her, have you? You deserve congratulations, too," Draco said. Severus noticed immediately that he was alone, unaccompanied by Astoria Greengrass, and the older man shivered imperceptibly.

He looked at Draco's open, smiling and appreciative face—at Draco's expensive clothes. Severus thought how, once, looking at Hermione's tiny rooms and the sadness that lingered around her eyes, he had realized that she deserved so much better than all of this. The picture molded itself to include Draco there, and despite himself, Severus realized that it seemed a good fit. Suddenly he found he could not step inside the room to collect on Hermione Granger's gratitude.

"No," he heard himself say. "I've just realized that I've something else to attend to. Please excuse me."

/ \ / \ / \

"You're a loss to the department, Severus. I hope you know this."

Colin Morse's face, placid and smiling, was a sight to be memorized and stored in the safe haven of Severus' memories. He knew that after today he might never see Morse again, and he felt it—the tension between the two desires of staying where he was quietly welcomed, and of venturing into the unknown. He had once been a brave man, he knew, and it was time to see if such bravery could be redeemed.

Severus and Morse shook hands, and before he said or did anything foolish, Severus took his leave of the office and said goodbye to the Time Division.

On his way to the Ministry lift, he thought of how strange it was that he should have worked in the same place for years and left so little a mark of himself. Apart from some new files documenting animal research on Time Turner sand—files now duly submitted to the proper authorities—he had had nothing on his desk to signify his presence, and so carried nothing now that he was leaving it. He realized now that, perhaps unconsciously, he had known that his term in the Time division was merely one of transition: one where he poised to fling himself into new and uncharted territories, and claimed back all of the choices that Voldemort had taken from his generation.

Thinking of all these things, he'd hardly noticed that somebody was blocking his progress into the lift.

"Going somewhere?" said Hermione Granger.

She looked fresh and untroubled—it was a week now since Rita Skeeter's capture, and a week now since rumors of a reconciliation between herself and Ron Weasley surfaced in the public consciousness, and kept afloat. Today she wasn't wearing Ministry robes and looked just about ready for an outing. He caught the front page of a _Daily Prophet_ under her arm, and was instantly afraid of the headline he might see there.

"Away," Severus heard himself say.

"Away temporarily, or away for long?" She came closer again, and this time Severus did not step back, nor did he feel the desire to do so. He seemed even more drawn to her now than when he had last seen her, and despite himself, his gaze drifted all over her, memorizing details.

"Away for long, as you say," he answered. "I've handed in my resignation."

"Oh, good," she said happily, surprising him. "I always thought you were more suited to devising more Potions of your own, than analyzing existing ones."

It was exactly what he had been planning. His first order of business had been to purchase the cauldron that he had been coveting for some time, and his second was to look for a place that he could use it for research, or a company who would fund his mucking about a cauldron.

"Indeed," he said, throat dry. He cleared it and, completely at a loss for anything to say, he added, "If you'll excuse me." He did not want to be thanked. He thought that if she were going to say that she came to thank him—only to thank him—that it would be tantamount to a rejection, and he could hardly face her.

But before he could step past her and into the lift, a small hand grabbed his sleeve, and he found himself looking down at her again.

"Would you mind if I came along?" she whispered.

He looked into her eyes and saw, with disbelief and a rush of fearful pleasure, something in those eyes that reflected his own affection and awareness of her. He saw, suddenly, the same inexplicable ease and friendliness she had shown him, the almost giddy tone of her voice when she talked to him, all protracted over the course of a week that was at once too long and too short.

He saw, most importantly, the headline on the _Daily Prophet_ that her movement had exposed: GRANGER SAYS RECONCILIATION WITH WEASLEY IMPOSSIBLE, and underneath it in smaller print: GRANGER'S NEW MYSTERY MAN, REVEALED.

He couldn't stop himself.

"Coming along temporarily, or for long?" he said quietly, fearing her response, half certain of defeat.

"I think you know the answer to that," she said, smiling suddenly, and he was reminded of his own words to her in the threshold of the Sharpe house.

And when she took his face in his hands and kissed him—gleefully, shortly, sweetly—he did know.

/ \ / \ / \

_End of story_


End file.
